


A Roleplay Story

by River Taylor (enchantedsleeper)



Category: Pottermore - Fandom
Genre: Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Cyberpunk, Gen, Hufflepuff, Magical Realism, Roleplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-08
Updated: 2013-06-08
Packaged: 2017-12-14 08:06:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/834603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enchantedsleeper/pseuds/River%20Taylor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pottermore has stepped up its moderation of the site to ambitious new levels with the release of chapters from The Goblet of Fire. Three Hufflepuff roleplayers have an encounter with the moderation that they won't soon forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Roleplay Story

Lucinda shoved her Maths homework away from her with a groan of frustration. She didn’t _get_ quadratic equations and she didn’t _care_ either, she was never going to need them except to pass stupid GCSEs because Maths was compulsory for some reason… She scowled down at the hardback copy of _The Prisoner of Azkaban_ which sat beside her on her desk. At least at Hogwarts you could _choose_ Arithmancy, not that she would, but it still sounded more interesting than Maths. Why couldn’t she be brewing potions right now or growing mandrakes or studying Care of Magical Creatures?

“And you don’t count,” she said irritably to the black cat snoozing on her bed in a patch of sunlight. “I _know_ you’re not magical and taking care of you is easy anyway, you don’t _do_ anything.”

The cat ignored her. Lucinda rolled her eyes and glanced towards the desktop computer sitting to her left. There _was_ a way she could be brewing potions right now. Her mum had banned her from using the computer until she’d done her homework, but it would only take a few minutes… and she could come right back and carry on the equations while it was brewing…

Twenty minutes later, Lucinda had completely forgotten about the Antidote for Common Poisons she had brewing as she clicked around Pottermore, reading comments in the Sorting Hat chapter and the Moments for book four, the first few chapters of which had just come out. She wanted to roleplay, so she went into the Room of Requirement (the nickname for the page ‘J.K. Rowling on the Hufflepuff Common Room’ which was used for roleplaying; Lucinda didn’t know who came up with the name but it was cool) to see if any of her friends were online. 

As she entered the room, she noticed a disturbing difference from the last time she’d been in there. Hovering over the proceedings was a round robot made of dark metal: Pottermore’s new in-built moderation device. One had appeared in the Common Room with the release of the new chapters and spooked everyone a lot. Rumour had it that two Gryffindors had already been suspended so far. She’d heard people talking about a petition to protest against the bots, which now oversaw comments in all houses’ Common Rooms and the Great Hall, but she didn’t think it would do anything. She’d hoped that they would overlook the Room of Requirement and not bother to put one in there, but sadly it looked as though someone knew how they used the Room and wanted to make sure they behaved.

She stuck her tongue out at the Bot, which of course didn’t react.

> **RainSpirit19824** –sticks tongue out at bot- Lucie

“Pants,” said Lucinda, wondering what the rudest word she could get away with was.

> **RainSpirit19824** pants
> 
> **RainSpirit19824** i am for and ten years old
> 
> **RainSpirit19824** come on bot do something
> 
> **DreamProphecy321** i’d be careful with that thing if i were you -El

“Gah!” Lucinda almost jumped out of her skin at the appearance of another user in the Room. “Don’t scare me like that!”

Ellenore smirked to herself at the other girl’s reaction. That is, assuming her nickname was indicative of gender. Given that she was a Puff, it was statistically likely that she would be female (though she had no idea why Hufflepuff was so largely dominated by witches, but it was nonetheless).

“Be careful about broadcasting your age as well,” she cautioned. “You don’t want the wrong person to get hold of the information.”

“I know that,” said “Lucie” with a teenager’s characteristic indignation. “I could be roleplaying what my age is anyway, you don’t know.”

Ellenore doubted that, but she decided to humour the girl. “Want to roleplay together then?”

“All right,” said Lucie offhandedly.

“What shall we rp? Hogwarts students?”

“Why would I do that? I’m already a Hogwarts student,” Lucie responded with disdain, and Ellenore laughed as the message appeared on her monitor. _Layers upon layers of roleplay…_

“Then what about if we two witches go off and explore an enchanted jungle?”

“All right, that sounds cool.”

 

Matti wasn’t expecting to find anyone in the Room of Requirement when he logged in to Pottermore first thing that morning; but to his surprise, two users he’d never met before were roleplaying some kind of magical jungle expedition. He sat and watched them for a while, just refreshing the page without joining in. One of the users was new-ish, the other an old hand from a few days after the site came out of beta. Both witches by the looks of things. After a while the two explorers came to a fork in the trail, and he saw his opening.

> **RainSpirit19824** we should def take the mountain pass, the valley might not be safe -Lucie
> 
> **DreamProphecy321** no! mountains are giant territory, that’s a terrible idea. -El
> 
> **RainSpirit19824** better than being stuck in this jungle for even longer, we can avoid the giants -Lucie
> 
> **StoneWizard57007** Do not take the mountain pass, for it is cursed. -The Prophet

“Who said you could join in?” The younger girl, Lucie, broke character and addressed him rudely.

“Join in? I am merely warning you,” Matti replied, sticking doggedly to his persona. He’d been roleplaying various characters in this room for the past year or so, and the Prophet was his favourite by far. He thought of him as being a bit like Dumbledore, but less friendly and more transient: a wandering wise soul. But it had been a while since he’d taken up the Prophet’s mantle. A lot of his old roleplaying companions had dropped off due to dissatisfaction with the site and the way it was moderated. He looked up at the hovering censor-bot and grimaced. He might find himself leaving too, if things carried on like this.

Still, for now the two girls (grudgingly on Lucie’s part) accepted him into their game, and The Prophet accompanied them down into the valley as protection against any evil that lurked there.

The precaution, as it turned out, was justified. Lurking at the bottom of the valley was a great monster, the likes of which none of them had ever encountered before. Matti broke off there, letting El decide how to describe the monster.

> **DreamProphecy321** the monster is a vast round robot, covered in the rust of centuries but still immensely powerful. this ruthless killer is one of Sorceress
> 
> **DreamProphecy321** Umbridge’s legendary minions, a sense or bot. in ages past they were responsible for the restriction of free speech across the entire 
> 
> **DreamProphecy321** wizarding world. now they lie dormant, waiting to ensnare the unwary traveller - El

Matti stared at the screen with his heart pounding, wondering what the hell El was playing at. Was she trying to bring the mods down on them? All it would take was one rule-abiding user passing through to report her post and she could be facing a suspension from the site. Or did she not care? Maybe she saw herself as some kind of daring revolutionary, fighting the power one roleplay at a time. He snorted at that thought. Well, she could do what she liked as long as she didn’t implicate him or Lucie.

“We should approach with care,” Matti, or rather the Prophet, advised. “Disillusionment charms won’t work on this monster for it has no sight. Our words and actions have alerted it to our presence.” That last was intended as a pointed warning to El to watch what she said and did.

He didn’t notice the censor-bot in the room turning its nozzle towards him.

“How do we defend ourselves against it?” Lucie asked. 

“It may be possible to avoid detection,” said Matti. “As long as we do not-” 

At that moment, the censor-bot suddenly fired a beam of white light at him, cutting him off mid-sentence. Matti stared in horror as his screen flashed and pulsed for long moments. Then it stopped as abruptly as it had begun.

“I.P. address scanned and logged,” declared the bot in cool mechanical tones.

“What just happened??” demanded Lucie. “How did it do that?!”

The bot swooped down to hover in front of Matti, who stood rooted to the spot.

`"Hi, StoneWizard57007,"` it began. The reading of his username and numbers was jerky and unnatural, as it had obviously been put together from separate recordings of every possible word and number. `"It's great to see you enjoying your time on Pottermore. However you should know that a contribution you made to the site has been deemed inappropriate by our moderation."`

“That wasn’t me, I didn’t do that!” said Matti in desperation. “El, it was you – your description set it off – do something!”

“The targeting system is inaccurate,” said El, almost to herself. “It recognises the red flags, but not who set them off.”

“Huh?” said Lucie.

`"You will be issued with a temporary suspension from the site commencing immediately. Activating Suspension Beam."`

“Prophet, MOVE!” shouted El. “Get out the way and it can’t suspend you!”

“What?”

“Flipendo!”

El’s Knockback Jinx was aimed, not at the bot, but at Matti. It hit him with enough force to propel him several feet to the left, and the Suspension Beam went wide, sailing clear across the Room of Requirement. 

`"Error: Suspension Unsuccessful,"` said the bot. `"Reactivating Suspension Beam."`

“We’ve got to fight back against the monster!” Lucie cried. 

“Use your strongest spell!” said El.

“Um… Uh… Locomotor Wibbly!”

A pink light shot from Lucie’s wand and hit the bot on the nozzle.

“Jelly Legs? That’s your strongest spell?” said Matti in disbelief.

“Hey, I’m really good at it!”

The Jelly-Legs curse had an odd effect on the bot. It had no legs to speak of, but the nozzle wobbled (as if made of jelly) and drooped, causing the Suspension Beam to hit the ground in front of the bot.

`"Error: Suspension Unsuccessful. Reactivating Suspension Beam."`

The bot rose higher into the air, positioning itself over the little group so that it couldn’t fail to hit its target even with the nozzle disabled.

“Now’s your chance to do better, Prophet!” said El.

“Well- I-” Matti hedged and blustered. “I really don’t do duelling, I’m more of a roleplayer actually…”

“And you made fun of me!” Lucie exclaimed indignantly. “At least I can do both.”

“Just cast whatever spell you know, there’s no time!”

“Incendio!” Matti’s rather weak Fire-Making spell hit the bot just seconds before it could fire the Suspension Beam. The bot’s dark metal shell glowed red with the heat, and it started making strange whirring and clunking noises.

“It’s overheating!” said El. “Petrificus Totalus!”

El’s Full Body Bind disabled the bot once and for all. An odd silence fell as its motor and fans failed altogether and the bot dropped to the floor with a loud “thud”.

No-one said anything for a moment as they processed what had just happened. Then Lucie and Matti rounded on El.

“Why didn’t you just use Petrificus Totalus in the first place?” said Lucie. “That would have been much quicker!”

“And just who the heck do you think you are, almost getting me suspended?” Matti demanded. “You had to know that description would get us in trouble!”

“Would you look at the time,” said El. “I really must go. Bye you two, it’s been fun!” She logged out before they had a chance to object, leaving Lucie and Matti alone in the Room together.

“Well… That was eventful,” said Matti awkwardly.

“It was fun!” said Lucie. “Oh no! My mum’s coming, I gotta go – bye!”

“Mind if I add you as a friend?” But she had already gone, leaving Matti’s question to linger unanswered on the message board until someone else came in to roleplay.

 

Lucinda switched off her computer screen and scuttled back to her desk as her mum’s footsteps sounded along the corridor. She had just re-opened her Maths exercise book and picked up her pen when the door opened.

“Still at it?” her mum said sympathetically. 

“I hate quadratic equations,” said Lucinda, truthfully and with genuine feeling.

“How many more problems have you got left?”

“Um, I’m about halfway through.” This was a lie – she’d only done two out of ten problems so far and they were probably wrong.

“Well done you,” said her mum, and Lucinda felt very guilty indeed. “Want a drink?”

“Yes please, hot blackcurrant please.”

Her mum left and Lucinda reapplied herself to her homework, determined not to get distracted this time. Then she remembered something.

“Oh no – my potion!”


End file.
